Latino gangs continue to use firearms and machetes to try to regain control of Madrid neighborhoods from their rivals, especially in the southern zone. In recent months, several serious episodes have taken place in neighborhoods such as Usera, Villaverde, Puente de Vallecas and Arganzuela; On Wednesday night, Carabanchel was the last scene of the hunts involving the Trinitarios, the Dominicans Don’t Play (DDP) and the most veteran, the Ñetas.
The night before last, at 11:10 p.m., Room 091 began receiving calls from neighbors on Nuestra Señora de Valvanera Street. They reported that about six shots had been heard during a fight between young Latinos on the street. Sources involved in the case explained to ABC that the attackers, most likely Trinitarios, were hooded and dressed in dark clothing. They approached their victims, the DDP, who were in a garden with chairs and tables. They were surprised by gunshots, indiscriminately. One was hit in the chest, another in the lower back, a third who was trying to hide in a bus shelter was hit in the arm and back…
The fight reached Carpetana Street, where four men were injured by gunshots and a fifth by machete in different parts of the body. They are all of Spanish nationality, although of Latin origin, and the last one is Dominican, aged between 20 and 23. They were transferred by Samur to different hospitals.
The attackers fled in a VTC located in Usera. Two of the four suspects, Hondurans, are arrested. They are 17 and 22 years old and are accused of attempted murder. The driver is also under investigation, in case he is a necessary cooperator.
Vía Carpetana was the territory of the Trinitarios until the pandemic, when the DDP took advantage of this confinement situation to strengthen its position in the neighborhood. Since then, the fight for territory has not stopped. On August 23, 2023, a 22-year-old man was stabbed in the neck, left forearm and back, very close to the shoulder blade, as well as shot in the buttock. He miraculously survived. He was with other members of his group at a small table in the square. They started to run, but he tripped and that’s when they shot him. A few months later, the police arrested three attackers: two adults and a 17-year-old.
The day before the incident, a 16-year-old Trinidadian minor was stabbed in the leg with a machete at a bus stop near the Islazul shopping center, where he was waiting with his girlfriend. An 18-year-old member of the DDP gang was arrested a few days later. They were classmates in high school.
Mutilations in Vallecas
The district of Puente de Vallecas is another territory in contention, this time between Trinitarios and Ñetas. Júnior, a 23-year-old young man belonging to the latter gang and known as “Bayamon”, was left one-armed, his left arm hanging and a stab wound in the back that pierced his lung. One of the three detainees is a minor. This happened in August, also in another park and next to the fields of Payaso Fofó Street, behind the Rayo stadium. The attackers came from the neighborhood of Albufera Avenue, while another pioneering but residual gang like the Ñetas settles its scores with the Trinitarios of Peña Gorbea. They are the Latin Kings, who are gaining muscle in Entrevías.
In early September, the National Police arrested three men for stabbing and amputating three fingers of a 31-year-old man, who had also been stabbed several times in the back. One of those arrested is only 14 years old.
During those same days in August, a young man wearing a balaclava and armed with a hunting rifle was dismembered with a bolomachete; a new chapter of Trinitarios against the Dominicans Don’t Play in Delicias (Arganzuela).
Less than two months before, a 16-year-old minor broke into a nearby pizzeria, on the same promenade, and fired a rifle at three rivals who were dining at a table. He hit one of them and another, whom he shot at point-blank range, fled because he had enough speed to take cover behind a tray that served as a shield. The criminal had seen them inside the restaurant and, after informing his superiors in the gang, they ordered him to end their lives.
